The Dark Twisted Mind of H.P. Lovecraft

Interview with Bob Curran

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1. Could you tell us your dark inspiration and motives behind your new book “A Haunted Mind – Inside the Dark and Twisted Mind of H.P. Lovecraft”?

Bob Curran: Over the last number of years I’ve written many books on supernatural and esoteric subjects and so it seemed natural that when the publishers talked to me about doing another book that we should look at Lovecraft. However, this book held a special resonance for me. Some of my readers many know that I was brought up in a fairly remote mountain area of Northern Ireland and, growing up in the late 1940s/early 1950s, superstition was still rife in such a place. Looking back, I would be tempted to say that the community which I grew up in was very self-reliant and insular – it always amazes my own children when I tell them that I was 16 and working before I actually saw a television. In many ways, the countryside that I grew up in resembled aspects of rural Rhode Island which served as Lovecraft’s inspiration. There were odd rounded hills, many topped by ancient Celtic hill forts; isolated houses where some people lived alone <not all of them strange or eccentric>; and remote hollows which were supposed to be haunted. And, in this area and at this time, there was also the sense that there was another world beyond what we could see and experience – the world it was said of fairies. For example, in a large field behind the house in which my grandmother lived was a “fairy fort” <an old earthworks> in which nobody would work after 6 p.m. in case they were carried away to another country; there was an eccentric lady who lived in a near ruined house away over the fields who always went about with a dark veil over her face and who was said to wander the roads at night; there was a ruined church near where we lived which was supposed to have something terrible lying in one of the tombs built into its walls. As well as this my grandfather, who was a great musician and storyteller, would tell stories about strange things that he’d seen when he’d been a labourer for various farmers in the southern end of Ulster. It’s not hard to imagine then that a young boy reading Lovecraft was able in some way to personally connect with his work. A lot of that experience is still with me and came to the fore when I was working on A Haunted Mind. In answer to the question I would think that of all the books I’ve written, the Lovecraft book might well have been a personal working through of my childhood experiences and memories.

2. So where do you think that the inspiration came from regarding Lovecraft’s created Universe, esoterically speaking?

Bob Curran: Like most writers, I think the inspiration for Lovecraft’s Universe came from his own experiences and fears. Lovecraft himself was an “unusual” character <and we’ll talk about this a little further on> and his world was what we might describe as “closed” or “limited”. Whilst for many people <especially writers> that might have been something of a bad thing, it nevertheless gave Lovecraft’s vision a kind of sharpness and depth. There is no doubt that he was both intelligent and widely read and therefore, through his narrative, he had the ability to invest his own narrow perspective with a kind of dark colour which has appealed to other writers and readers. I think that perhaps he was in some ways more terrified of the wider everyday world than he was of the terrible Universe that existed inside his own head and the horrors that he created in his own world reflected this. For example, it’s been suggested that Lovecraft was something of a racist and that he despised anything foreign <which is why we find degenerate foreigners lurking around the edges of some of his stories>. Whilst some of his work can be interpreted <if the critic so chooses> to hold a slight element of racism, I think that he was probably more terrified of something which was strange and unusual and which might threaten the safe and secure world which he knew and in which he had been brought up. Similarly, many of his stories have been criticised <and were criticised during his lifetime> for following roughly the same framework, or in some cases, the same plot. This is, however, I feel, Lovecraft simply working through his terror of the wider world and psychologically strengthening the defences of his own “interior Universe” <so to speak> against it. It might be argued that the fear of the “real world” gave his own interior imaginings a sharper clarity and a vividness which has continued down the years and upon which other writers <both professional and fan> have been able to build and develop.

Of course, there have been many people who have argued that his inspiration came from some sort of arcane knowledge to which he was privy – and there have been many books speculating on this <I address some of these issues in A Haunted Mind> but I do think – and this is probably the psychologist in me – that much of his inspiration came from somewhere within himself

3. Could you tell us a bit about your personal perspectives on H.P. Lovecraft’s stories and what you admired about them?

Bob Curran: Firstly, let me state that I often struggle a lot with modern horror fiction. I said earlier that I was 16 years old before I saw television – I was either 13 or 14 before our house had electricity and so I grew up reading books in the evenings by lamplight or latterly gaslight. This, of course, added a terrific atmosphere to ghost and horror tales which I suppose reading modern horror doesn’t have. It gave me a taste for the likes of M.R. James, Poe, E.F. Benson, H. Russell Wakefield etc. My favourite work of more modern times is Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black. However, much modern horror fiction I can cheerfully ignore. However, I do enjoy much of Lovecraft’s fiction. For two reasons I think. The first is its sense of brooding menace lying beneath a seemingly tranquil rural landscape. As I said before, this chimes with my own experience and whilst I wasn’t as isolated as perhaps Lovecraft was, there were elements which were similar. The second reason is that I enjoy the way in which bits and pieces of information are released in small pieces throughout the course of the story so that it becomes almost like a detective story <my other favourite genre – I’m a massive Sherlock Holmes fan> until the final horror is eventually revealed. It’s the way in which the story gradually builds. Perhaps that appeals to a sort of “academic” <although I dislike using the word> part of me. The idea of the crumbling libraries and forbidden books also excites my imagination, as I know it does with many others, and I suppose stimulates my sense of history. In my view, some of the tales are not terribly well written <this was also a criticism aimed at Lovecraft by Farnsworth-Wright was an editor at Weird Tales> but the depth of imagination and the descriptions of some of the mouldering locations are great. Some of the other tales – for example, August Derleth, Clark Ashton Smith <particularly the Averoigne stories> and Robert Bloch – are but more cleverly structured but of course they would not have existed without the input and imagination of Lovecraft himself. He laid the groundwork for the others to follow and for this he certainly deserves credit.

4. It seems that all the stories lead to the final outcome of madness and death and oblivion. Is this accurate?

Bob Curran: There are really no happy endings in Lovecraft, usually only madness and death. I believe that he had a real fear of madness – particularly that he himself would go mad. Both his father and mother had died in the Butler Hospital in Providence which whilst not exactly a formal “madhouse” had a number of connotations of the same. His father had died in 1898 apparently from a mental condition associated with syphilis and his mother had been admitted following a nervous breakdown in 1919 <she would die in 1921 from complications following gall-bladder surgery>. Lovecraft, however, seems to have become convinced that there was a hereditary part of him and his family which was predisposed towards insanity. He himself suffered what has been described as “near breakdowns” and “black moods”. This fear, I think, became translated into much of his work and indeed became a central theme of it. The strangeness of Lovecraft’s universe in his own eyes <and in the eyes of many of the writers who came after him> was often too much for the rational human mind and the only alternative was madness. So the most rational of protagonists often descends into insanity towards the end of many of his stories which eventually finishes in death.

5. What can you tell us about Lovecraft’s personal life and how is it as strange as his creations?

Bob Curran: Growing up and reading Lovecraft’s stories, I knew really very little about him as a person. It was only much later – and partly by doing this particular book – that I began to see the writer behind the terrible tales. I open the book by saying the H.P. Lovecraft was not a man you’d really invite round to dinner – it was doubtful that he’d have come anyway and even if he did, he might not have all that good company. In researching the book, I have to say that the more I found out about him, the less I liked him as a person. That may, of course, sound like sacrilege to the Lovecraft fan but it’s my own opinion. I am of course, speaking from a personal aspect and about the actual man rather then the writer, but he struck me as a very selfish <or at the least self-centred> individual. Perhaps, as in most cases, this resulted from his cosseted upbringing at his grandfather’s home <which was considered part of “genteel Providence”>. It may also have stemmed from the perception that he was “apart from” and perhaps in some ways “better than” the main run of society <he always considered himself something of an “outsider”>. It might even have had something to do with his inability to communicate with other people on a face to face basis – he preferred to confine his social interaction to long, almost novel-length correspondence. But, on the surface at least, he seems to have been a rather lazy person – content to live on other people without making much effort himself. For example, when he married Sonia Green, he was extremely content to live on her money in New York <she even bought their wedding ring and paid for the honeymoon>, much to her own daughter’s disgust. When she hit difficult financial circumstances, Lovecraft more or less abandoned her and returned home to Providence to live off his Aunt Lillian. In fact, when she was taken into hospital, he raged about who would look after him and provide him with the money he required for living and traveling. As a writer too, he seems to have singularly lacked ambition and foresight. The majority of his work was done for Weird Tales and it seemed that having found one niche market, he was content to remain there without extending himself or exploring other fields, although encouraged to do so. Thus the amount of money he made from writing was negligible and he eventually died almost in abject poverty. Nor did he attempt to find a job – in his life he only held any gainful employment for a week. And even when his wife Sonia was desperately trying to make ends meet, he did nothing to help her but continually squandered what money she made both on himself and his “literary friends”. Although by all accounts, he could be rather good company with those whom he trusted and who had money and always assuming that he wasn’t in one of his “black moods”, he was not a person whose company one would readily seek out. But perhaps it was this personality which defined his vision and gave it its intensity. Even though he was something of a withdrawn and perhaps unlikeable individual, there is no doubt that his influence on the horror genre has been immense.

6. What can you tell us about some of the denizens and creatures in his Universe and some of the ones that you enjoyed the most?

Bob Curran: Maybe “enjoyed” might not be the word to describe my reaction to Lovecraft’s Universe. And when dealing with Lovecraft and his creatures, one of the problems that I found was trying to differentiate which creatures he himself had created and those which other writers had created or adapted from his work. I think that Lovecraft initially set out to create some sort of “supernatural and/or folkloric beings” in the way that Arthur Machen had done with his tales which had relied on Welsh folklore. At some point, he seems to have switched to a more “science fiction” format with the idea of beings like the Great Old Ones coming from Outer Space. I think this was because of two things – firstly the pulp magazine market was shifting in the direction of science fiction and trips to other worlds. Secondly, it appealed to Lovecraft’s personal interest in and love of astronomy. Rather that creating the Old Ones as a homogenous race, however, Lovecraft detailed certain members individually and by name – Cthulhu, Nyarlathotep, Yog-Sothoth etc – perhaps displaying his knowledge of ancient gods and their various antiquities which he incorporated into a science-fiction style genre. I also think the other thing which appeals about Lovecraft’s vision – and you have referred to it as a Universe, others have referred to it as a Cosmos – is the sheer scale and enormity of it and the beings which dwell in it. It gives a sense of humanity being positively dwarfed by massive and ancient inhuman forces which are not altogether kindly disposed towards it. Of course other writers such as Ramsey Campbell and Brian Lumley – and Bloch and Clark Ashton Smith, together with Derleth – have been instrumental in both expanding and developing the Universe and in adding ever more terrifying creatures such as Glaaki and Nyogtha and I suppose that Universe will continue to expand with many of today’s current writers. One word of warning through – as this Universe expands it becomes more and more complicated and as I wrote the book I had to be careful to distinguish between the various entities and species which were distinct but were also interconnected in many ways, As for my own particular “favourites” – many of the beings appeal to me in one way or another but I do have a sneaking regard for Azathoth <maybe because It’s just a chaotic mass “that seethes and bubbles and mutters to itself> and Ubbo-Sathla <the primal protoplasm>

7. Cthulhu is pretty much king of all the creatures right? The king of madness so to speak when it comes to H.P. Lovecraft’s Universe?

Bob Curran: Again, it depends what you mean when you use the term “king”. It implies a sort of hierarchy amongst the entities and I don’t think that Lovecraft really envisaged such an order <although subsequent writers may have envisaged one> but he had the idea that like old gods, every entity was powerful in its own right. Alliances may have been made between them but in many cases they operated of their own accord – although within certain defined parameters. Certainly Cthulhu is a seminal entity amongst all of the beings and has given Its name to the entire Mythos. I think that Lovecraft’s “Call of the Cthulhu” is one of his most reprinted stories, so if you wanted to refer to Cthulhu as “king” on that basis you would probably be correct. But it’s difficult to know as to whether Lovecraft actually envisaged the being as a kind of ruler. Those who made contact with It or Its disciples certainly seem to have gone mad – so to describe it as a being that inspires madness would also be correct. But then so did a lot of Lovecraft’s other creations.

8. Are there any good guys or good beings in H.P. Lovecraft’s world or are there simply victims?

Bob Curran: I have to come back to the question as to what you mean by “good”. I don’t think that Lovecraft necessarily viewed his creations as being “good” or “evil” in the conventional sense. They were simply different and perhaps played by very rules than we do. When I started to do this book I was, coming from a fundamentalist Christian background here in Northern Ireland myself, interested to see if Lovecraft’s religious background had played any part in the creation of his Universe but in all that I read about him I wasn’t able to find any direct reference – although I would think that his early exposure to religion played a part in the creation of his Universe. He was raised in the Baptist tradition which is a fairly radical religious perspective and I would think that it had some sort of influence on him either directly or indirectly. For example, his descent into underground temples, whilst it has echoes of the old Classical Mystery Religions may also be suggestive of a descent into Hell or into the realm of evil which was at one time prominent in some fundamentalist Baptist teaching. But in the main, I think that Lovecraft viewed his creations as being somehow beyond good and evil although the terminology – words such as “blasphemous” which is a religious term– keeps resurfacing throughout his work. At times too, certain entities can be called on for protection <usually against the forces of some other being> but they can also be incredibly destructive reflecting the attributes of some of the ancient gods about whom Lovecraft would probably have known. The entity Nodens is an example of this. So in some cases the deities <and the “victims” themselves as far as we can ascertain – Lovecraft was not particularly good at characterisation and so many of his protagonists simply remain as little more than ciphers with very little personality> are pretty ambiguous and lie somewhere between good and evil.

9. I am curious if you could give us a little background on yourself. What got you interested in the paranormal and the high strange? What happened?

Bob Curran: As I said above, I was born and raised in a rather remote rural area of Northern Ireland and I was raised largely by my maternal grandmother and grandfather. My grandmother kept a shop at a crossroads and each night she closed up about six o’clock. However, if neighbours wanted anything after that they came to our back door and were sometimes invited into our kitchen. Consequently our house was always full of people coming and going, sometimes getting tea and chatting. My grandfather was a musician and a great storyteller and I think he had more of an influence on my early life than I realised at the time. All sorts of people came and went throughout my early life – I remember as a boy sitting on the knee of the great “tinker singer and musician” Margaret Barry who went on to appear at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island and had her photo taken with the likes of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez – and I suppose they left a mark on me. Music therefore has always played a role in my own life – I worked for a while as a professional musician – and in the life of my daughter who has a great musical ear, better than I ever had. Superstition too played a great role in people’s lives back then. Many of our neighbours believed in fairies for example and there was a field not far way from our house which nobody would cross without saying “By your leave” as there was said to be a fairy path through it. I left school just before my 15th birthday and worked first as a gravedigger and later as a lorry driver as well as a number of other jobs. Later I would travel in other countries – in Canada and in America, both North and South; I lived a while in Morocco and travelled in the Middle East and in parts of Europe but I suppose that the superstitions and beliefs of my upbringing never left me and I became interested in the beliefs of other countries as well – particularly with their superstitions. I think this is the way in which we make sense of the world and interpret what happens to us in relation to it. I came back and went first of all to college and then to University and have finished up as a teacher, consultant and writer. A lot of my writing is trying to untangle all the early experiences and superstitions that I saw around me and trying to make sense of them. I think that’s what we all do in one way or another – I just choose to write about mine.

10. I see that you have a book about vampires coming out called American Vampires. What can you tell us about that and what else do you have up your sleeve for future publications that perhaps you can share?

Bob Curran: People sometimes look at America as a kind of homogenised country – that everybody is American and that’s it. However, travels across the country have shown me that it’s not like that at all and that there are very distinct traces of other cultures there, many still dating back to the foundation of the country. Also we think we know vampires – we have read enough books or watched enough films to feel very familiar about them. We don’t know them at all, especially in America. Vampires here are a product of the various cultures to be found all across the country. For instance in New York, we get a distinctly Dutch feel to the nachtmerrie that haunt the city; vampires in North Carolina are different to those in South Carolina; or that in New Mexico vampires are strongly connected with witchcraft and do not necessarily have to be dead. Also not all vampires are human in form – there are examinations in this book of a vampire chair; a vampire well and vampiric vegetation in California. So I go around some of the States and look at the histories and cultural influences which have shaped the idea of the vampire there. This book should be out before the end of the year – we’re doing the edit on it now. After that we’re looking at perhaps another book and we’ve been discussing on the possible mythological and folklore themes behind some of our better known fairy stories – Red Riding Hood; Rumpelstiltskin etc. It’s sort of in the tradition of the television series Grimm which is very popular over here these days. However, this book is still in the discussion stage and nothing is finalised as yet. We’ll see how things work out. There will be further books I would think but, as you probably know, things are generally slow at the moment and we need to plan next year carefully. However, two books will be out later this year so that should keep you all reading for a while.

A Haunted Mind – Inside the Dark and Twisted Mind of H.P. Lovecraft published by New Page Books

Bob Curran’s website here